Last weekend I used some of my late-season tomatoes to make a nice pot of Marinara sauce. Some of it was used by my son to make lasagna, but I was able to get most of it inside some jars.

This years estimate so far - Approximately 60 quarts of plain sauce, 32 pints of Annie's Salsa, 14 quarts of apple sauce, a dozen pints of pickles (we had a bad cuke year), a half dozen 8 oz jelly jars of cowboy candy, a half dozen 6 oz jelly jars of habanero jelly, two dozen 4 oz bottles of various hot sauces, a few jars of fridge pickled peppers here and there, somewhere around 50 lbs of frozen tomatoes, 10 lbs or so of frozen peppers and onions, up to 8 dozen frozen jalepeno/poblano poppers, and a few lbs here and there of frozen green beans. Still have plans to do some more pickled peppers, dilly beans, and poppers. Also have a bunch of ghost chilis and frozen choppped habanero that I might turn into jelly.

Heres two current pictures of our basement 'put up' shelves:

and here’s some of the hot sauce, jelly’s, and cowboy candy we’ve made.

Kevin, doesn't it feel good to have that full pantry?

Mathias, the autumn olive is invasive and it's everywhere. I live right on the edge of the National Forest and there are acres of it. I've made jam and jelly, but can't think of anything else to do with the stuff. The last batch of jelly I made took 4 hours of picking for a single batch, so your berry comb would be a good idea. I've found that some bushes have berries that taste different than others, so I always taste before I pick. it kind of reminds me of cranberry, I've been turning over a relish recipe in my head...

Jack, I'm happy to say that my husband was up before dawn on opening day, and got a good sized doe right after the sun came up. He came to get me to help track it, but it only went about 50 yards, he got a good solid shot. Since he hasn't hunted in at least 10 years, he was happy with that. I helped him field dress it and it was bagged, tagged, dressed and at the processor before 10:30, still gave us plenty of time to get to my son-in-law's birthday party. What did they serve? Venison BBQ, LOL, we aren't the only ones with a surplus of deer!

Today we packed 35 pounds of sauerkraut and it's happily fermenting in the back room. I also canned 16 half pints of cowboy candy, to go along with the jalapeno relish and the hot pepper mustard and the sriracha sauce and the hot sauce. I also put 4 quarts of sweet pepper slices in the freezer for pizza and sausage sandwiches later this year, and managed to deseed and freeze another 60 jalapenos for poppers later. As long as we stuff them frozen, it works pretty well. Yes, that's a 1/2 bushel basket, and I took the picture AFTER I made the relish, the hot sauce and the mustard!

And, undeterred by our hunting success, this was outside our window tonight. Earlier I counted 47 deer in the neighbor's soy bean field, and not a single horn in the group. One of these does had triplets this year.

Annie

Annie - Congrats on your husband's deer harvest! It sounds like he needs to get a few dozen more or your farming neighbor isn't going to have any beans to harvest! You sure have a lot of Jalapenos to deal with. I'm not envious at all ;-) I should have one more small harvest of 2-3 dozen to deal with and will either make some more poppers or chop and freeze them.

Kevin - your canning season has been really impressive! I didn't do much in the way of tomato products this year other than Annie's Salsa and a few quarts of crushed tomatoes and need to expand and do more next year. I'm adding another bed of tomatoes to my plan for 2018.

Annie - that's a neat trick to freeze the deseeded jalapenos for future popper making. I'll have to remember that one. My jalepenos have not done as great this year as in years past. Part of the reason is because their neighbor peppers (poblanos and ghost chili) outgrew them and are hogging all of the sunlight. I think Im going to be providing more space per plant next year.

Also - glad to see your husband bagged one. Nothing like some venison bbq!

Well... We beat the birds to the grapes this year and I canned up 14 quarts of white grape juice. It came out "peachy" in color. Really pretty. We pulled a lot of green tomato's thinking we were going to get a freeze... Close but not yet. Going out of town tomorrow.. Almost wish we were staying home so we could get some pepper relish put up. Taking a bunch of garden produce with us and will share with daughter. We do plan on taking cabbage for sure.. And will put up a gallon jar of kraut for them to have. When we get back we will need to get the rest of the cabbage in the bucket for our own kraut.

No freeze here either, carfan, and the garden is still plugging along. I finished up 8 half pints of Concord grape jelly and frozen a couple of sheet pans full of eggplant slices, already breaded and baked, so they'll be ready for eggplant parmesan this winter. The butternut and blue Hakkaido squash are in the pole barn to keep them away from the deer, they've already tasted several. I also have 9 pepita pumpkins in there, grown just for the seeds, I'll roast those. Tomorrow we are processing chickens, the raccoons and/or skunks have already killed 5 of the 26, so we're going to beat them to the rest, hopefully. After that it'll be on to either apples or greens...

Annie

Annie - It continues to amaze me how much food you "put up"! Just curious, what part of the country are you in? And...How much land do you have? I'm just a "city girl" with a 25 x 50' garden. I'm thrilled to be able to can various tomato products, and some beans every year. I stretched my comfort zone a bit and canned some beef vegetable soup for the first time ever...just 5 quarts.

itsmce, I'm in Northern Michigan, and we have 80+ acres, so lots of room for gardens and fruit trees, grassfed beef and pastured chickens. Plus I live right on the edge of the Manistee National Forest, in fact it's on the North side of the road and my farm is on the South side, so I adjoin, hence the huge deer population. My friends say that when the zombie apocalypse happens, they're coming to live in my pantry, LOL. I just haven't been able to explain that it's how I was raised and how all farmers lived. You grow it, preserve it, eat it in the winter and then grow it again. (grin) I even have a grain grinder for my own cornmeal and flour. I really like being able to control what's in my food and what I eat, and I did it when the kids were small, I wanted to know what I was feeding them.

We have some hard winters, and sometimes I get snowed in, and it's nice to not have to venture out any further than the barnyard to make sure the animals have food and water and just stay home without icy roads or trips to the grocery.

Today the chickens were processed, 21 of them. Half belong to my stepson, who was supposed to help pluck and clean, but something about 3 kids and soccer/basketball/school.....so Elery and I did it alone. Stepson will be here in a couple of weeks to get his from the freezer, he lives about 3 hours away.

I also canned 9 pints of "unstuffed cabbage rolls", which was actually just a soup with ground beef, tomatoes, cabbage and some seasonings. I'll put it over rice to serve it and it'll be kind of like cabbage rolls. Sort of....

Annie

Annie my wife and I were raised the same way and have extended family connections to farming. I always wanted to be a farmer growing up, and felt most comfortable visiting family and friend's farms in SW Minnesota. My wife felt the same way growing up as well, and was drawn to Laura Ingram Wilder's books about life on the prairie. We both didn't have the opportunity to farm ourselves, but chose a self-reliant lifestyle that was instilled in us from a young age. We bought our first home near the MN/Canadian border where our three children were born and raised during their formative years, and still have that original homestead and land where we all visit often to hunt, fish and garden our potatoes and carrots, among other things. Here at our home in the twin cities I am done with my water bath canning vegetables finishing it up this past weekend with the last 10 of 58 quarts of tomato sauce. We are nowhere near achieving the variety of items you preserve, but I do focus on canning tomatoes, peppers, beans, cukes, and beets for veggies, and venison, hares, cottontails, squirrel, and fish for pressure canning. I have gotten some good ideas for future reference here on this forum, plus it is fun reading about what others are doing.

Wednesday I whipped up another batch of Annie's salsa. My storage shelves are full to overflowing, but I had the tomatoes. What's the saying?...When life gives you tomatoes, make salsa! I think I will be giving canned goods to extended family members this year.

Here there still has been no frost, it's unheard of. I hadn't yet dug the last of the carrots or the golden beets so I went to the garden to do that and found that the deer had eaten every single one left. I have to dig the carrots, if I try to pull them I break the tops and leave the roots in the earth, but somehow the deer managed to paw up and eat every single one. (sigh) Ah well, we have one more doe permit...

So, instead, I canned 4 quarts and a pint of stock from some of the backs and necks of those chickens that went into the freezer.

Annie

Our green tomato crop was outstanding... The red ones... Not so much. So I took the Choice Salsa recipe from the NCfFP and added curry spices. Two batches done this week. Still working on the spices of curry, Garam masala, ginger, tumeric, brown mustard seeds. Added 1/4 cup brown sugar and an additional cup of white vinegar because the green tomatoes seemed a bit dry. Husband says it tastes like, "more". I also froze 10 - 2 cup packages of mixed chopped peppers.

An unusually robust late tomato crop has turned into me using more jars than ever! Yesterday I turned about 14 pounds of tomatoes and about 30 little jalapeños into 10 jars of what we're calling Notel...not Rotel, but my version of that store-bought creation.

Pretty. Did you pressure can this?

Canfan - Yes, I did pressure can the Notel. Raw packed and processed for 25 minutes at 15#.

Oh, that is pretty. Tonight I canned 9 pints of applesauce, more will be done tomorrow. After that, sauerkraut and I have some poblanos in the garden yet to be dealt with. I also dug two five gallon buckets of Red Pontiac potatoes and one of Kennebec potatoes, which went into storage, along with 15 butternut squash, about a dozen blue Hokkaido squash and 9 pepita pumpkins. I need to remove the seeds and dry those pepitas, but I haven't done that before, so it should be a learning experience!

Annie

30 pounds of cabbage shredded, salted and pounded sitting in the bucket. Now we wait. Kraut in the making. :)

Blended up and bottled a batch of 'FIRE' sauce. It consists of a blend of ghost chili's, habanero, thai chili, garlic, carrots, tomato paste, and as many red bell/sweet peppers as I could jam into the fermenting vessel to try to take off some heat - it wasn't enough. I discarded about 75% of the liquid and replaced with a mix of apple cider vinegar, white vinegar, and lime juice. This stuff is scorching hot! If I don't find people to give it away to its going to be sitting in my fridge for a longggg time.

Oh and not pictured but I made a batch of 6 pints of pickled green tomatoes. They smelled so good while cooking up!

Its - that's some good looking Notel! I'll have to remember that one for next year when I get sick of plain jane tomato sauce and want to make something a little different. I guess if I'm in a canning mood (or want to free up freezer space) some time I could pull all my frozen tomatoes and peppers and whip up a batch.

Good info about what? I don't click links from someone with one post.

First hard freeze is coming here Saturday morning. Predicted low is 28 for both Saturday and Sunday but I expect the lows in my valley garden will be a degree or 3 lower. I picked about 15 lbs. of green peppers and the last couple lbs. of green cherry tomatoes last night and brought most of the peppers to give away at work.

I'll be doing some more freezing this weekend. A couple more heads of broccoli and some side shoots and 2 or 3 heads of white cauliflower. I might chop/slice and freeze a dozen or so green peppers. I already have several bags of ripe peppers in the freezer.

I have 20 or so leeks left but they will be fine until we get down to the teens and then I will either freeze or dehydrate what is left. Carrots still need a couple more weeks, a few of them are getting pretty good size at the soil line.

My fall potato plants will be toast after the freeze so I plan to dig them on Saturday. I will be surprised if there is anything usable under the ground.

Jack, I agree, I'm not clicking that link, posted by someone I don't know and haven't seen a post from before and that appears to be their only post on any of the forums.

We finally got our first frost here, down to 29F night before last. I still have the poblanos to deal with, and the squash will all go into storage.

I also canned 24 quarts and a pint of sauerkraut and 9 pints of applesauce, the sauerkraut was nice and white and just sour enough, I was very happy with it and I have four heads of cabbage left...

I don't know how widely distributed Firehouse Subs are, but you can get a food safe bucket with a nice gasket in the lid for a good seal for $2. The proceeds go to local fire departments, so it's a good cause, and the buckets already smell like pickles, LOL. Anyway, they make good containers for things like sauerkraut and fermented pickles.

Annie

Annie - those squash are really cool looking with the mix of shapes and colors. I need to take a look at mine this weekend to check for any mold. I should probably roast and freeze some of the Acorn since they don't keep as well as the Butternut.

We have a few Firehouse subs in the KC area and one of them isn't too far from my office. I've only been there once and had the Cheese steak which was very good. I'll have to go back and pick up a couple buckets and try fermenting pickles next year.

finally done with 2017, made the usual jams, jelly and pickles, pickled okra, pickled jalapenos, banana pepper relish, jalapeno relish and peppa vinagars. I also made ref hot cinnamon apple rings. This year for the first time I made banana pepper mustard and jalapeno mustard. It turned out great.

My 2017 canning is in the books too! Last night I processed 5 pints of tomato sauce. I have never done sauce before, but I couldn't see doing any more of anything else with the bulk of my remaining tomatoes. I had to really scrounge around to find enough pint jars. I have more things canned this year than ever before.

This past week, I dried mushrooms and cabbage and made up a batch of home made mustard. For the mustard, I used a mix of yellow/brown mustard seeds, kraut brine, apple cider (fresh pressed), grnd cumin, smoked garlic minced, dried shallots, grnd pepper and a few drops of liquid smoke. I keep this in 1/4 pint jars in the fridge. Also pounded out some curtido (salvadorian kraut).

I'm not quite finished yet, I put 1/4 bushel of poblanos in the freezer after roasting and peeling them, they'll be ready to stuff later when I want them. These came off 2 plants!

I canned the last of the applesauce, 7 more pints, and I still haven't touched the greens. I plan to make another batch of the cabbage soup too, I liked that a lot.

This is all in my winter "cold storage", I've found that I can fill those plastic milk crates with things like potatoes or squash or cabbage, stack them up and I have a lot more room, they're easy to access as I just lift off the top crates, and they have pretty good air circulation.

I'm definitely buying more, as I have these and the remaining six are in the backroom full of canned goods that don't fit on my shelves!

Annie

We had a couple killing frosts over the weekend. The only thing left in my garden that was killed was a zucchini and my fall potatoes. I was amazed how fast the potato plants turned to mush. I planted them on August 8 so they only had 80 days in the ground and I wasn't expecting much. I was pleasantly surprised with the 13 lb. yield.

I blanched and froze 2 heads of cauliflower and the last 2 heads of broccoli and some side shoots.

I cleaned up several of the vacant beds and turned in some compost and cut down all of my asparagus beds which is nice to have finished.

Fall potatoes

I added 9 pints of cabbage roll casserole/soup, but still haven't gotten to the greens.

Jack, I haven't cut the tops on my asparagus yet either, and it snowed today! I did clean the chicken coop and use the residue to compost my garlic bed, which I still need to plant. Maybe tomorrow.....

OK, it's tomorrow and no one has posted, so I'm editing this to add the 6 quarts of collard greens I canned tonight while eating Halloween candy! Hey, it's the thought that counts and I was canning something healthy. To eat later, of course. (grin)

More edits, I guess everyone else is done! I added 7 quarts of beef and 6 quarts of beef stock to my list. Last count: 716 jars canned so far this year. I still think I'll be doing at least one more canner full of collards and maybe turkey stock after the holiday. Maybe some more soup too...

Annie

Not quite done here Annie! Holy cow...716 jars! I MIGHT have got up to 100 this year and I think that is a record for me.

Did the Daikon radishes have enough time to get any size to them or did the deer eat them too? I hope Elery got to make his Kimchi!

I only have carrots, leeks, Horseradish, and Brussels Sprouts left in the garden. I got a few more heads of cauliflower frozen last weekend. I'm trying to hold off on dealing with the rest of the harvest until Thanksgiving week since I have the whole week off from work. We are forecast to get into the low 20s on Friday morning but then warm back up quickly so I think everything will be fine for a couple more weeks. I'm not looking forward to peeling all of the carrots and HR.

Today is potatoes. Got all the home grown ones done but store had a good sale this week 10# of russets for $2 so we picked up 40 lbs to can. Lots of peels for the compost piles. ;)

Dave

Jack, you reminded me that I have to replant horseradish. Everyone tells me it's tough, it's invasive, it'll grow anywhere and I'll never be able to get rid of it. Ahem. I've killed three separate plantings so far, so figure. I've managed to grow artichokes here, and okra, but I can't manage to get a brussels sprout or horseradish. (sigh)

The daikon did get a start, but only managed to get about as big as my index finger, the ground got too cold for them to be happy, I think. No matter, I'll plant them next spring, they'll be happier then and if I can get an early start, maybe I can get some big ones for the County Fair in July. I don't think I've seen anyone enter those before. Elery managed to make one batch of kimchi with 4 or 5 of the biggest daikons and a couple of small Napa that I managed to save from the beetles, and then it was over. I'll grow Napa again too, it was very easy, but I'll have to be diligent to stay ahead of the beetles. And, for some reason, I pulled them up to prepare my garlic bed and the deer won't touch them, so that's a bonus for me.

As for the 700+ jars of canning, remember I made a big dent with those 215 jars of beans!

Annie

At this time of year I'm not "putting up", but rather "taking down". :-)

For the first time ever, this year I canned some soup - beef vegetable. It was chilly enough earlier this week and I didn't have anything planned for dinner, so I opened up my first quart. It was pretty tasty. Added a bit of salt, but we enjoyed it. I will can soup again.

Yesterday I opened a quart of diced tomatoes, a pint of tomato sauce, and a pint of "notel" (my take on Rotel) for a pot of chili.

It is so rewarding to just go to the basement for supplies instead of having to go to the grocery store!

Annie - how strange that Horseradish has been a problem for you. Are you planning to start a new bed this fall or wait until spring? I've always replanted some of the crowns in the fall shortly after I harvest and amend the soil a bit. Mine is planted in a small 3x3 raised bed that I can easily remove the bed frame from to make harvesting the roots much easier.

I think mid August would be the time to sow the Daikon for fall up there. I've never grown it in the spring before. Let me know how it does next year.

Itsmce - I'm happy for you that your veggie soup turned out well! i have tried a couple pickle recipes that we did not care for at all and it is so disappointing to go to all the work and not like the finished product. I used some of my fall potatoes and a couple carrots yesterday in a home made clam chowder recipe that turned out really good. I need to make a pot of chili pretty soon since it is getting to be pretty chilly outside.

My Horseradish bed back during the summer.

Wow, Jack, that's a nice stand of horseradish. Maybe I should consider a raised bed for it, I think we're going to build a couple for strawberries in the spring, it could go right along with those.

Dave, I dug buckets of potatoes from the garden, which did not stop me from purchasing 50 lbs of "unclassified" red potatoes from a local shop. Yeah, I know, but I couldn't pass them up for $8.99 for 50 pounds, that's something like 18 cents a pound and they were local, so now I'll have to do something with those too. Maybe some french fries in the freezer as well as canning some. I do like potatoes, my Irish side coming out, LOL.

I've also been using my canned goods. Two quarts of spaghetti sauce went into lasagna for my granddaughter's birthday, we made fresh homemade pasta and used home canned sauce, it was pretty darned good. I used a couple of quarts of tomatoes for chili for the crew that was working on my son in law's roof on Wednesday, and baked homemade bread for sandwiches. Green beans from my stash went along with the lasagna and salsa with chips accompanied the chili and sandwiches. Peanut butter and homemade grape jelly for my grandson when he came here after school one day and cowboy candy for Elery in his morning omelettes. Yeah, I know, but he likes it, LOL.

Thanksgiving is coming up, I'll use some more then, including the last of the cranberry sauce I canned last year after the holidays, when cranberries went on sale.

Annie

Husband smoked and dried peppers, I ground them into powder and filled 4 spice bottles. Also dried apples and ended up with 3 full quart bags.

Thanks Annie! Small raised beds work really well for horseradish because I can easily remove the bed frame and kind of tease the soil from around the roots when harvesting which allows me to get more of the root without them breaking.

Saturday was opening day of firearms deer season here in Missouri. I hunted both mornings but didn't get one. I saw a few small bucks but in my area there is a antler point restriction that prohibits taking a buck that doesn't have at least 4 points on one side. No big deal...not having to deal with butchering a deer gave me more time to work in the garden.

So, I harvested my horseradish. For the first time I had tree roots infiltrating the bed from the trees you can see about 50' behind the HR. I think it diminished the harvest a little because I only got about 4.25 lbs. and I usually get 6 to 8. I can't move the bed further from the trees because HR won't be moved since the roots penetrate into the subsoil under the bed. I may start another small bed in the spring.

I spent about 3 hours yesterday washing, peeling, and processing the HR. I ended up getting 12 - 4 oz. jars. It keeps very well in the freezer until needed. I still have 1 jar left from last year.

Next on my list is harvesting the carrots and leeks and getting them into the freezer. I'm going deer hunting in the Ozarks next weekend so that will have to wait until Thanksgiving week.

Some of the HR roots.

Thanks for the horseradish tips, a raised bed might be the way to go, it seems. A friend used old tires to plant horseradish and potatoes, he'd stack them up two high, plant the potatoes and horseradish. The black tires kept the heat in well. As the potatoes grew, he added another tire and more soil, then another tire and more soil. He said four tires was best for him and then when it was time to harvest he just took off the tires and harvested everything. I considered doing that but the appearance of having tires stacked in my yard didn't appeal, LOL. Maybe somewhere they couldn't be seen.....

Meanwhile, I found some habaneros, so I need to make Elery's peach/habanero hot sauce and at least one batch of Habanero Gold.

Annie

I was going to edit my prior post, but Houzz won't let me. So....

I added 5 quarts of beef stock and 6 half pints of peach habanero hot sauce. Probably some turkey stock after Thanksgiving dinner, which I'm having on Saturday...

Annie

My gardening season has come to an end :-(. I picked the rest of the carrots and leeks and got them into the freezer. We had some of the carrots and brussels sprouts with our Thanksgiving dinner as well as frozen green beans in the GB casserole. My remaining fall potatoes were too small to peel so I had to buy some to mash.

We decided not to get the 1/2 beef but will probably get 1/4 in late winter. We also plan to split a hog sometime this winter.

3 new raised beds I am working on for next year. I have 2 of them filled now and about 1/2 of the 3rd.

Jack, one of the things I can't seem to grow here are brussels sprouts, the deer LOVE them. Yours look awesome.

My garden is done, of course, except for the collards. They just keep on growing and I keep cutting and cooking them. It's amazing how much cold they can tolerate, I'd never have thought.

I'm still canning, though, a couple of days ago I canned another 5 quarts of beef stock and tonight I did 6 half pints of Readinglady's Hot N Sweet Confetti jelly. It's a large batch version of the Habanero Gold, she was kind enough to put together a recipe that made more than 2 or 3 jars, which was the yield of the original Habanero Gold.

We have several rolls of venison sausage "curing" in the freezer, tomorrow it'll go into the smoker and then into the freezer.

Annie

Took advantage of having Mom here for the holidays, and pulled the 55 (or so) lbs of tomatoes out of the freezer. Canned 17 quarts of tomatoes and 6 quarts of tomato water/juice (to use for soups). Fired up my husbands homebrew equipment so I could do all the jars at the time. Also pulled some shredded zucchini out of the freezer, and Mom whipped up about 100 zucchini tater tots. Had some for dinner tonight, and the rest will go to the freezer for quick meals.

Brewed a big pot of chicken stock last night and will can it today. Merry Christmas everyone!

A belated Merry Christmas back at ya Dave!

My putting up is finished until the Asparagus comes up in April. I did take the time over the holiday weekend to defrost my upright freezer and organized all of the frozen veggies.

Cooked a 14 lb. ham for Christmas dinner and have enough left over to do a double batch of ham and beans this coming weekend and will freeze most of it for work lunches.

Merry Christmas from Michigan too! I am cleaning out the freezer, making room for beef that was supposed to be processed in the fall but my processor had an equipment "failure" and needed to repair/replace some refrigeration units. So the steers just keep eating and getting fatter. Anyway, I've made both beef and chicken broth and canned it, and I'm thinking I'll take those jalapenos that I froze for poppers and make some more of the jalapeno relish, I'm all out! My stepson has been eating the stuff on pancakes for breakfast, but no one is eating poppers, so I'll give it a try, I've never made it with frozen peppers before.

I'm in the process of using canned goods instead of canning them, and we'll have our holiday dinner on Sunday, Christmas Dinner on New Year's Eve, LOL, but two family members work the midnight shift and everyone has in-laws and Mother has grandkids and so I didn't really care which day, only that everyone gets together. So, New Year's Eve it is.

Meanwhile I canned 7 quarts of beef broth, 6 quarts of chicken broth and I helped my daughter can another 11 quarts of chuck roast. She uses more canned than she does frozen, so she likes to keep it on hand.

Annie

Liz Gross (or anyone who could answer), you said, " Fired up my husbands homebrew equipment so I could do all the jars at the time." May I ask what kind of homebrew equipment is useful for canning and how you used it?

He has a propane burner rack and a 10-gallon pot. I like to use it when I’m doing very large water bath canning batches, as I can fit 16 quarts in the brew pot at once. When it’s really hot outside (not a problem right now) it’s also nice to keep that heat out of the kitchen. For this project, I actually had two burners going at once. One with the brew pot and one with my normal water bath canner.

It’s not a good alternative for small batch recipes (like salsa), but for things that can be raw packed, it’s great.

That sounds good. I just I bought a secondhand pot from a turkey fryer, at least that's what I think it is. It should be good for blanching large amounts of vegetable all at once. It has always bothered me that I could not blanch all at once my green beans for a batch of quarts. I have an apartment size stove and needed a deep sort of narrow pot with a lot of volume.

I'm just starting to plan some canning after getting nothing done all fall. We're out of orange marmalade & Habanero Gold. Have a chicken carcass for stock. I have a bag of frozen tomatillos, but I'm not sure what I'll do with those just yet.

Annie - I'm intrigued by your unstuffed cabbage roll casserole/soup. I make one fresh, but never thought of canning it! Could you share your recipe or point me to one?

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy, & prosperous New Year - and lots of happy canning!

Lorri

Seasyde, I used this recipe, but made it using the proportions required for soup by the NCHFP.

http://www.sbcanning.com/2014/03/unstuffed-cabbage-rolls.html

http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_04/soups.html

I made the last batch with ground venison and it was preferred by my family to the original batch made with ground beef.

Happy Canning!

Annie